I wrote this for a contest where the last line of the story had to be...well what the last line of this story is. enjoy
Blood dripped from my face, falling to the sand. I was tempted to just give up and die, right there on the coliseum floor. Lacerations from dozens of close calls covered my body. Gritty sand granules crunched between my teeth and coated my tongue. I spat again, then looked up. A man was walking slowly towards me, hefting a battle axe in both hands. From my vantage point on my hands and knees he looked ten feet tall. His mouth was moving and I had to concentrate to hear the words over the roar of the crowd all around me. The bloodthirsty heathens hungered for more sustenance, more violence. No, I could not give up now. I would give those savages what they wanted, but it would not be cut from my flesh.
“You will die like the pig you are.” the axe man was closer now, not more than ten feet away. He raised the axe up and slammed it into the ground. “Does that scare you boy? Does it make you want mercy?” He took another step towards me and brought the axe down again, obviously getting pleasure from dragging out my imminent death. The razor sharp blade dug into the sand. The crowd roared. “If you want mercy you’re gonna hafta beg for it boy.” With a thud the axe slammed the ground again.
I had no memory of how I got here, or why I was fighting. I had no memory of anything before being shoved through the doors into this god-forsaken coliseum. All I knew was that I had to fight. I had to kill to stay alive. I had killed three already, not counting the leopard. Now this man and his blasted axe was going to end me? Not if I could help it. Still on my hands and knees I looked around wildly for my sword. It had flown free when I had been knocked ruthlessly to the ground. A flash of crimson caught my eye. The scimitar was half buried in sand a few feet away. Caked in blood and given a fresh coat twice more, the curved blade smiled mockingly, just out of reach.
Thud. The man, no more than five feet away now, was still sneering and shouting derisory comments at me. He was close enough to see the sweat slowly dripping down his muscular body. The sweltering midday sun hung directly above us, pressing down on my naked back with almost tangible force. The crowd was standing now, screaming in anticipation of the blood that would soon pour from my body. I tilted my head up and looked my attacker directly in the eyes.
“I’m gonna split you into…” He faltered as he caught the look of sheer determination I threw at him. “I’m…you’re…” I lowered my head and he seemed to gain confidence again, swinging the axe into the soft sand. It landed less than a foot from my face. Sunlight glinted pure white off the hot metal, contrasting with the black bloodstains that had been painted by some poor victim long before me. Sand flew in all directions and I shut my eyes to shield them. Blindness would definitely not help at a time like this. I heard the sand slide off the blade, and felt the shadow cast on my neck as he raised the axe high above his head. Wait for it…wait for it…
“Have fun in hell.”
He let out a small grunt as he brought the axe down, just as he had each time before. I rolled deftly to my left, milliseconds before the axe slammed into the ground where I had been kneeling. My hand went unfalteringly for the leather-bound sword handle and I came up swinging. There was just enough space between us that the tip of my blade barely made a slice into his face. I let the momentum of the swing spin me around and this time I brought the scimitar down on the side of his neck. The steel sliced into his leathery skin with a spray of red. It was only when I heard the crack of his spinal chord giving way that I realized the crowd had fallen silent. The sword’s momentum stopped three quarters of the way through. Damn this bastard had thick skin. His unsupported head flopped to the side, his eyes wide and lifeless. Tendons and arteries protruded from the stump, flapping wildly from the force of the blood gushing out of them. The towering man crumpled at my feet like a sack of wet bricks. I took a step back to avoid the growing red lake around his body, then raised both my hands victoriously.
As a single entity the crowd went wild. I stood gasping for breath in the center of the coliseum, hands in the air, and spun slowly. The people in the stands were cheering and jumping up and down. It looked as if they were bubbling, like a fiercely boiling pot of water. They loved me. I had quenched their thirst, and they loved me for it.
Suddenly the mob fell silent again. I heard the creak of the huge wooden entrance doors and turned around. This time they had sent two men to finish me. Would they never give me a break? I still had not even caught my breath. One man was sprinting at me, sword in hand, and the other had dropped to one knee. I took a battle stance, unsure of what to expect.
A whistling sound filled my ears, and before I had time to react an arrow had appeared in my stomach. I staggered back a step and coughed once. Blood ran out of my mouth and down my chin. Another arrow joined it’s brother. My sword slipped out of my hand and I dropped to my knees. The man running at me was getting closer, sinewy legs pumping faster than seemed possible. Behind him, the bowman stood and began running too, his bare feet kicking up fountains of sand in his wake.
The first guy had his sword arm cocked back behind him, fully prepared for the swing that would take my head off. I had no energy left to fight him. I coughed up blood once again, looked down at the arrows in my abdomen, then looked back in full resignation of my fate at the warrior rushing towards me. He was smiling. He let out a yell as he started to swing and then…
Nothing. Silence. The whole world had gone black. I tried to open my eyes but then realized they were already open. Water sloshed and echoed as I turned my head to look around me. With a rush it all started coming back to me, like a feeling of déjà vu that never went away, only grew in intensity, until the déjà vu became my reality. I was a criminal. Well, supposedly anyway. That’s what the world thought. I had been framed, falsely convicted of brutally murdering my wife and son twenty years ago, in the winter of 2027. For those twenty years I had wasted away on death row, my cries of innocence falling on deaf ears. They told me I was crazy. Maybe I was. I had spent countless hours in my cell wondering, asking myself that very question. I didn’t feel crazy…but maybe you don’t.
My sentence had been Perceived Alternate Reality Termination, or basically, Death by Mindfuck. Years ago the government had opted to do away with electrocution and lethal injection. This was deemed to be a more humane way of execution. There were plenty of options and scenarios the condemned could choose from: avalanche, shark attack, alien invasion, middle eastern combat. I had chosen the gladiator death; it had seemed more glorious than the rest. Why hadn‘t I died though? Had something gone wrong? My hands slid along the smooth curves of steel around me. I remembered being put into the sensory deprivation chamber and recalled seeing a latch somewhere on the inside. My groping fingers found it, and cautiously I pushed up on the cold steel above me.
As soon as the lid cracked open a storm of noises flooded the chamber: yelling voices, the patter of running feet, the furious clicking of dozens of fingers on keyboards. The bitter smell of burning hit my nostrils.
“What the hell happened here Jeeves?”
“I…I…I’m sorry sir! You see I haven’t been f…f…feeling well and…”
“Quit stammering like some damn moron and spit it out”
“I had this cup of tea and it was piping hot and…and…I accidentally knocked it over and it spilled…”
“Piping hot you say?”
“Y…y…yes sir, piping…”
You’re an idiot Jeeves. I want you out of the PART room now. And take your damn teacup with you.”
I tried to sit up but was restrained by several wires taped to my head. I pulled them off and looked over the edge of the chamber. I was in a white room filled with technicians rushing frantically back and forth. In the center of the room was a bank of computer monitors. Wires crisscrossed in every direction. On one side of all the monitors three men were crouched down over a black computer, hurriedly unscrewing parts and wiping them down with rags. Liquid dripped off the table above it.
“Somebody wipe that crap up! It’s still dripping for Christ’s sake.”
One of the technician’s on the floor looked up. “It’s no use Dr. Dimitri, the motherboard’s shot to hell.”
“Well then get me a new motherboard! I swear you people are retarded!” the man standing over him ranted. “If that damn cup of tea had spilled two seconds later, the jerk would be dead and we wouldn’t be having this problem.”
The only guard in the room was standing off to the side with his back to me, only a few feet away. Still no one had looked in my direction. I siezed my chance. Without another thought I vaulted out of the capsule and sprinted to the guard. I balled up my fist and nailed him as hard as I could in the kidney. With the other hand I grabbed his sidearm out of the holster. He fell to the ground puking, and everybody stopped and looked at me. I leveled the gun and swept it around the room.
“Everybody on the ground. No not you,” I pointed the gun at the gray-haired doctor and strode purposefully towards him as everybody else dropped. I grabbed him by the collar and shoved him towards the door. “Open it.” He punched three numbers and the double doors slid apart. I pushed the barrel into the base of his skull and shoved him down the hallway in front of me. What was I going to do? My family was all dead. I had nowhere to go outside these walls. Only one thought propelled me forward, the same thought that had kept me going through all those years of solitary confinement. Revenge. I was a dangerous man they had said. A deranged killer. They may have been wrong then, but now that claim was dead on. They had made me this way, and someone was going to pay the price for it. My family’s killer was going to pay. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, just that I would not rest until he was dead. It would be hard, I knew. The only thing I had on my side was this gun I barely even knew how to use. Well, that and luck. I smiled a little. After all, how many people can honestly say their lives were saved by a piping hot cup of tea.
Copyright 2008 Andrew Handley
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